


losing sleep & sanity

by trashonwheels



Category: VALORANT (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Reader is head over heels for Viper but wouldn't admit it for the world, Reader is highly caffeinated, aim practice gone wrong, also, and minor injury, and unable to function, because they do, have i mentioned they have a thing for Viper?, there's also swearing, they/them pronouns for reader
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-18 08:42:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28864254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashonwheels/pseuds/trashonwheels
Summary: Reader gets recruited to Valorant Protocol and their assigned mentor is none other than Viper herself. After many sleepless nights, the rookie sneaks into the shooting range, exhausted and heavily caffeinated, and tries to blow off steam via working on their aim, but due to their tiredness, they cannot focus properly and end up getting frustrated.OrViper babysits an adult human being and it’s fun. Lots of fun.
Relationships: Viper (VALORANT)/Original Character(s), Viper (VALORANT)/Reader
Kudos: 8





	losing sleep & sanity

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!
> 
> This is my second writing here, woohoo! I'm almost 100% sure I have some errors going on but I wanted to post it asap! Haven't seen any Viper/Reader ones so far, so here we go! Hope you'll enjoy it!

It was the middle of the night and they were unable to sleep. Their thoughts – mostly about Viper – were keeping them up a left them tossing and turning in their bed. They so wanted to make their mentor proud (and they _may_ have a small crush on her, but kept denying), it had the opposite effect, making them an anxious and restless mess, and the scientist probably disappointed.

 _‘Might as well just pull an all-nighter’_ they sighed, getting out of bed and dressing into a pair of black sweatpants and matching hoodie. After stepping into their sneakers, they started stuffing their pockets of their hoodie and pants with energy drinks, _‘that’s going to keep me up all night and maybe tomorrow I’ll be able to actually fall asleep.’_

While robbing their own fridge from caffeine, they thought of making the best of this extra time and going to the shooting range to practice their aim. The sound of bullets hitting targets could calm them anyway and they were in need of some success.

\---

“Damned bot, just fucking fall already!”

On the verge of losing their cool, they were letting a variety of profanities escape their lips, not even bothering how loud they were at this point. The indoor shooting range should be soundproof, right? It has to be to a certain point, meaning they wouldn’t wake the other agents. But what about the ones who were awake? They couldn’t even care less as they aimed, hands shaking, and once again missing the head by good two inches at least.

Meanwhile, not too far away from the range, someone else was pulling an all-nighter as well, for other reasons. It was Viper, sitting in her lab, taking notes, trying to solve a problem she’s been struggling with throughout the day, so tomorrow can be about running results and mentoring her rookie. She still didn’t understand why Brimstone insisted on her as a mentor, the poor kid could be scared of her. Not that she really cared about it. The task was preparing the fresh recruit for working in the protocol, not babysitting them and tending to their feelings. Besides, the kid seemed alright, not much of a troublemaker so far and liked when they were sitting in the mess hall, going through various tactics they could use on missions while having lunch.

The scientist was starting to lose her focus, so she decided to wrap it up for today. She always liked putting things into practice over working with theories anyway. Standing up from her chair, she went to the window to pull down the blinds, she forgot to do earlier.

 _‘Why is there someone at the shooting range?’_ she thought to herself, frowning as she caught a glimpse of light coming from its direction. The range is always closed for the night and no one’s allowed to go there, except for special occasions, but she’d be informed about that. Doing the math quickly in her head, she sighed, already having a weird feeling it was her mentee, though having some second thoughts about how could they get there in the first place.

Discarding her lab coat on the backrest of the chair, she made her way towards the range, the only sound that could be heard was the hissing of the door. On her way, she was weighing the possibilities who could be the intruder and how the night patrols haven’t caught them.

Jamming the code into the digital pad, the door slid open after a short _‘ping’_ and she could actually hear what was going on, but more importantly it has become clear from the shouts and curses that it was indeed her mentee. She should seriously start gambling with a bet like this.

“My aim is like a fucking potato!”

Viper was actually a bit surprised, apart from being mildly annoyed. She hasn’t heard this side of their recruit yet, as they were always rather silent and self-contained, only spoke when necessary.

Luckily, they haven’t noticed her arrival, too invested in missing targets and having a rather vide range of slang vocabulary on audible display than listening to their surroundings.

The scientist contemplated on whether she should just announce her presence in an irritated tone or sneak up on the rookie and take their gun right away but as she rounded the corridor towards the booth from where the sound of bullets and curses came from, she wasn’t so sure about the latter. _‘Should’ve brought a vial of poison and take them out’_ she thought.

The rookie was sitting on the floor, sheriff in one hand, a canned drink in the other. _‘Are they drinking while handling a gun?’_ Viper’s eyes widened at the sight. That could end their career at Valorant Protocol for good, before it had even started. There were more empty cans scattered on the floor and table. Grabbing one, she inspected the tag: energy drink. She didn’t know if the combination of alcohol and gun would have been worse or the current exhaustion, caffeine and gun, but the booth, including the young agent looked like a mess, even if she could only see their back. Hood up, slightly slumped and shaking. _‘They should be on high alert and paranoid, or the very least jittery from the amount of energy drink they drank’_ , the scientist thought, but they just looked lethargic. She was about to call them out when they moved, making her duck behind the sidewall of the booth.

“Fucking moving objects” they growled, but the target was a stationary one. They stood up slowly, leaving the pistol on the floor and started running towards the metal dummy, two options shifting continuously through their mind: _‘should I headbutt or knock this shit over?’_ Viper was peaking from the shadows and couldn’t believe what she was about to witness. Since the rookie was too close to the dummy and couldn’t make up their mind on how to destroy it, it ended up as a head-on, full frontal collision, both tumbling onto the floor with heavy thuds.

The whole scene was so absurd and happened within seconds, Viper couldn’t do anything, except watching with confusion. She was sure that the rookie didn’t have more than two brain cells at use right now. Had it been someone else, under other circumstances, she might even laugh (only in her head, of course) but since the new agent was practically her responsibility as their assigned mentor, she couldn’t take it lightly.

“Have you considered coming here well-rested and when the range is actually open?” her voice echoed in the silence, making her mentee’s head snap up in fear as realization hit them, whose voice they just heard. Their vision doubled, then tripled, and upon seeing their mentor swiftly climbing through the table, sporting their signature death stare, they desperately tried to recover from the fall and leave the place as soon as possible.

“Don’t you dare” she warned, raising her eyebrow and the young agent visibly paled but stayed motionless. Viper observed them as she approached: they were shaking from the caffeine and fear, the dark circles around their wide and unfocused eyes even more visible thanks to their complexion and their forehead was bloody from the recent incident with the target. To sum up simply, they looked like they’d just seen a ghost. The scientist stopped and crossed her arms, waiting for a reaction, if they’d even dare to speak.

“I can expla-” the rookie started but Viper raised an arm, making them almost choke on their sentence.

“And you _will_ but right now I don’t want to hear a word about it. Understood?”

They gulped then frantically nodded. _‘I’m so screwed’_ they panicked, then scrambled to their feet, feeling a bit dizzy but shaking the thought quickly. As if a switch had been clicked, they gathered all the cans from around the range, set back the dummy to its place and wiped their blood from its chin. Looking for the sheriff on the floor, they picked it up, emptied the magazine and swiped the gun fingerprint-free with the sleeve of their hoodie.

“That’s a poor attempt in hiding what you’ve done” Viper mused. “Especially, because I’ve seen everything.”

“Yeah, about that” the recruit started, glancing sheepishly at Viper but not quite meeting her eyes, “is there a way there won’t be a record on this” they motioned around them “whole thing?”

But they didn’t wait for an answer, instead went around the range one more time, making sure it looked decent, gathering the bullet cases that littered the floor and placing back the now evidence-free sheriff on the shelf.

They could hear Viper saying something, but suddenly everything became blurry and they barely managed to lean against the side of the booth for support. They were shaking visibly and then hearing other voices from the background and sides but couldn’t see anyone.

The scientist was waiting for an answer but as she took notice of her mentee’s sudden shift in behavior, namely becoming extremely jittery, eyes focusing and fogging and their labored breaths, she decided to take matter into her own hand and went over to slap them back to reality.

“Huh?!” they intelligently asked, then shook their head, snapping back.

“My lab, now” Viper ordered, taking a hold of their shoulder and guiding them to the exit.

The rookie was barely there and walking, mind too preoccupied with focusing simultaneously on not to pass out, the hands on their shoulders and the fact that they were going to The Lab. It’s been off-limits and now they were going to be there. With Viper. Viper on the other hand was quite done with this night but it wasn’t over yet. In fact, it has just begun.

After dragging the agent through the not so great distance that was between the range and her lab, Viper typed in the code, a hiss of the door shortly followed, then they were inside. Her mentee, upon spotting a black sofa next to the table, gathered their leftover energy, went straight for it and dropped down, passing out right away.

‘I’ll deal with them in the morning’ she thought, draping her spare lab coat over them. She also patched up their forehead quickly, luckily it was barely more than a scratch. Then she went to her chair and got back to her notes she abandoned, since there was no way she’d get any sleep tonight.

From time to time, she got up and checked the rookie’s pulse to make sure they won’t die under her watch, _‘that’d be rather unfortunate’_. She even thought of a punishment for the reckless agent, jotting down a few tasks. By the time she finished with her work, it was 5am. _‘This is going to be a long day’_ , she noted, getting up and going for coffee.

When she got back, she noticed the sofa was empty. Frowning, she looked around in the half-darkness, then noticed a hunched black figure sitting at her desk, curiously observing her notes. Could’ve been Omen, but he’d have already greeted her, followed by words of an existential crisis.

“Coffee?” she looked at them, after sitting down on the empty chair beside.

They shook their head. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I think I skip caffeine for a while” they grunted. “Thanks though.”

Viper only nodded, taking a sip of her hot coffee. “Don’t think you got away with everything.”

“Ugh, don’t spare me.”

The scientist rolled her eyes at them, then started the interrogation. “Care to explain what were you doing at the range last night?”

“Well…” they started and told her all she needed to know, skipping the part that _she_ was their mind’s intruder. They didn’t want anything to come between the two of them just as they started to kind of get along.

However, Viper has seen through them, but accepted the explanation nonetheless. Moving on, she fished out a piece of paper from her pocket and put in front of the recruit. “This is going to be your punishment” she said, as they shifted their gaze between the paper and her carefully, then reached for it to unfold. It contained a handwritten list of some tasks they’d have to do:

1\. Cleaning the shooting range

2\. Painting the fence around the facility

3\. Helping out in the lab

“I’m willing to sleep on last night if you stick to the list” she nodded towards the paper. “And don’t do slip-ups like that" she warned. "So, what do you say?”

They were ecstatic. Not for the cleaning or painting job, but the third point on the list. They could easily imagine working with Viper, hell, that’d be like a dream come true, though, their anxiety level would kick the roof sometimes, that’s for certain.

Giving a nod and a big smile, they said “I’ll do it” before getting up and awkwardly shifting from foot to foot. They wanted to hug their mentor but didn’t dare to go for it. Finishing her coffee, Viper also stood up, waiting for the rookie to make up their mind.

“Is there anything else? Or perhaps questions?” she asked, trying to break the ice.

“Yes, I mean no, just” they were tripping on their tongue “thank you. For real.”

“No problem, _kid_ ” she said, “but I mean it, stick to the list and stay away from trouble. I’m not here to babysit you. Was I clear?”

“Yes ma’am” they replied, still thinking of the nickname they’ve just been called.

“Then go.”

\---

A few weeks and many hours of cleaning and painting later the rookie was finally free from those chores, leaving them with lab support for Viper. The beginning was a bit bumpy, but they soon found their place in the lab, helping out the scientist with preparations and taking notes of her theories for later use. The two worked mostly in silence, but not in an uncomfortable one.

One day, they were sitting on the sofa with crossed legs, frantically typing everything the scientist said into their laptop. Viper was pacing up and down while coming up with theories faster than lightning. She reached into the pocket of her lab coat as she did so and upon touching the object in it, she realized she had a surprise for her assistant.

“Here you go, kid” Viper extended her hand towards the young agent who looked at her quizzed. She rolled her eyes, saying “give me your hands” and they did. The scientist let go of the item she was holding, revealing a gunbuddy. It was a green potato, wearing a mask. The now lab assistant was speechless, they never thought they’d get something from Viper, then they realized why it was a potato and started blushing.

“So you really did hear everything that night.”

She went over, embraced them in a side hug and said with a smirk “told you so.”

**Author's Note:**

> Linking the gunbuddy Viper gives Reader (I know it looks like an angry pickle): https://trashonwheels.tumblr.com/post/640783972864065536/toxic-potato-aka-angry-pickle-gunbuddy-made-for
> 
> Thank you for reading and have a nice day! (also feel free to leave constructive criticism or any kind of comments)


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